The GOP is passing a bill to end paddle-boat restrictions in Yellowstone park. Don’t laugh.

posted at 7:41 pm on February 6, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

My split-second reaction to this headline: What in the world is Congress doing trying to legislate boat access in Yellowstone National Park?

My reaction to this headline after three seconds of reflection: What in the world is the federal government even doing trying to micromanage Yellowstone National Park, at all?

Because apparently, if Congress doesn’t make a decision on Yellowstone boat access, then nobody else will. Nobody else can. Via The Hill:

The Obama administration said Wednesday that it opposes a Republican bill allowing kayaks and other paddle boats into forbidden areas of the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

The Public Access and Lands Improvement Act, H.R. 2954, eliminates two federal regulations to give paddle boats this expanded access to the two Wyoming parks. House Republicans will call up that bill today and pass it.

In a Statement of Administration Policy, the White House said the bill’s provisions on paddle boats “set a troubling precedent for the management of the use of hand-propelled vessels in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks.”

The SAP did not elaborate, but the White House is likely bothered by the idea of Congress using legislation to strike down two federal regulations.

H.R. 2954 is an omnibus bill that combines Lummis’s proposal and nine other land use bills. Among other things, it would prevents the Bureau of Land Management from expanding its inventory of land holdings, and allows for the conveyance of land in a few states. The White House said it opposes most of the proposals in the bill.

Yes, I’m sure the Obama administration and their eco-radical influencers aren’t at all keen on scrapping a federal regulation that helps to systematically shut off treasured areas from human access and recreation. For a little more background on what’s really going on here, The Hill points to this story from the Jackson Hole News & Guide from last November, when the legislation was first introduced to combat a lingering restriction from an antiquated rule dating back more than fifty years:

The regulations were written to prevent overfishing, said U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R–Utah, the bill’s co-sponsor and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation. That law is no longer a viable excuse and now serves only to exclude the public from enjoying an important national resource, he said.

“Once again, the Department of the Interior is prohibiting a good access for outdoor recreation for people, and it’s needless,” he said. “What we’re trying to tell them is to base their management plan on contemporary science and not regulations from the 1950s.”

Kevin Colburn, national stewardship director for the American Whitewater Association, agrees. Of all the national parks in the U.S., a similar ban applies to only Yosemite, he said.

“We think those old regulations don’t make sense anymore,” Colburn said. “There are plenty of ways to prevent overfishing without prohibiting boating.” …

Even without the ban, park leaders could still manage boating through permits and other practices, he said, just as they manage other uses. In fact, his organization would support such limitations, he said. …

The approach for boats he advocates “must put natural resources first and be sustainably managed, and I think boating can be sustainably managed,” he said.

Among progressive environmentalist zealots, there never seems to be any shortage of the fatal conceit that big government and big government alone is somehow the only effective arbiter of responsible environmental stewardship. In fact, however, the federal government is rarely if ever an efficient, energetic, creative, agile, or cost-effective problem solver capable of making decisions that are divorced from a specific political agenda. When it comes to its micromanagement of the American landscape, big government’s all too familiar flaws manifest themselves as environmental degradation and poor long-term policy choices.

Just look at what I highlighted from the above article: There are probably plenty of ways to prevent overfishing, without just outright banning boating. Why the employees and enthusiasts on the ground in Yellowstone are subjected to top-down decisions from politicians in DC is beyond me, but if the federal government were really interested in top-rate conservation, they should consider that there is probably nobody on earth more interested and involved in the conservation of prime whitewater areas and the surrounding wilderness than the people who are gung-ho about whitewater rafting.

The federal government already has a deferred maintenance backlog ranging in the tens of billions of dollars, but instead of taking better care of the one-third of the surface area the United States already owns, President Obama keeps funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund whose main purpose is to just keep right on buying and adding land to the federal estate (his 2014 budget asked for $900 million at the LWCF’s disposal, yeesh). The federal government does not need to be so heavily involved in the day-to-day management of all of our national parks, and the government shutdown last autumn aptly demonstrated why it’s a good idea to consider the option of leasing some of our parks to private companies that can more effectively steward them and actually generate revenue at the same time.

I sure am glad the GOP is working on something important. Instead of wasting time on things like repealing Obamacare, rolling back NSA spying, getting regulatory agencies off the back of the private sector and cutting spending. What I’m really concerned about is being able to use my paddle boat at Yellowstone!

…if the federal government were really interested in top-rate conservation, they should consider that there is probably nobody on earth more interested and involved in the conservation of prime whitewater areas and the surrounding wilderness than the people who are gung-ho about whitewater rafting.

That’s big government in a nutshell: No matter how cumbersome, corrupt, inefficient and overpriced, it’s better than “people” who cannot be trusted, even with their own self interest.

There was a vote today in the senate, you know, those guys you vote for every six years, and it fell short 58-40 to extend unemployment benefits. Those three republicans voted for it. The rest hate poor, out of work people.
But we got canoes!

There was a vote today in the senate, you know, those guys you vote for every six years, and it fell short 58-40 to extend unemployment benefits. Those three republicans voted for it. The rest hate poor, out of work people.
But we got canoes!

Pickle on February 6, 2014 at 8:29 PM

Yeah, cause handing out free money always helps people…just ask inner city blacks how much the federal government has done for their community over the years!

Why not have unlimited unemployment? And triple the amount? It helps unemployed people. Anyone who disagrees hates out of work people!/ You are gonna have to do way better. You are gonna get chewed up and spit out on this site.

It’s a Democratic vote farm. Modern day plantations brought to you by the party of segregation. The leftists wouldn’t want to do anything to actually help them in any real sense because that would threaten their political hold over them.

The States would do a much better job of managing the parks than the federal government can. And they can agree to set standards for running the cross-border ones so long as they don’t step on any federal domains in doing so. Stuff like picking up trash, helping visitors, making sure trails are maintained… stuff like that.

You know: running the park.

Instead of thinking you are the lord of all domains and fit to figure out if peddle boats can be used in a lake that is sitting in the middle of a volcanic caldera. If idiots want to go out and run into a pocket of noxious and toxic superheated steam and get parboiled – LET THEM HAVE THEIR FUN.

I have waited for more than 30 years to raft inside yellowstone…
a float thru Hayden valley would be fantastic..
get out before canyon village ..as the upper and lower falls are next..
you could do an overnighter on the Yellowstone river in the backcountry…put in near junction butte…
currently you cannot raft till your in Gardner Mt..maybe 20 miles downriver..
you could enjoy the Madison river floating westward..out of the park..
you could pack in to the upper Snake river and float south out of the park…
have rafted this area for maybe 20 summers…the snake and Yellowstone are great rivers…
inside Yellowstone park.. there’s a lake called two oceans lake..
you can kayak from here to either coast depending which end of the lake you depart from…
its Louis n Clark Americana…the upper rockies are a treasure
and we should be able to raft them..!!

you’ve either not been there…or
you weren’t paying attention when you were there..
next time you go …look at all the water you COULD raft
if only the Feds we not involved…
hundreds of miles of rivers n lakes…
very little of Yellowstone is “toxic” and you just put in
a few miles downrver…pick n choose..
lie you do when your hiking..its not all shear rock faces..

if your looking to fish…
just outside the west entrance is Henery Fork..
known thru out the world as Trout heaven..
and out the south side.. the Snake
the fish are smaller in the upper snake area..but
on the South Fork of the Snake in Idaho has 6-10 thousand fish per mile…
both can be floated with a little skill..

Instead of thinking you are the lord of all domains and fit to figure out if peddle boats can be used in a lake that is sitting in the middle of a volcanic caldera. If idiots want to go out and run into a pocket of noxious and toxic superheated steam and get parboiled – LET THEM HAVE THEIR FUN.

ajacksonian on February 6, 2014 at 8:54 PM

They rent small skiffs on that lake anyway.

I was in one once when we got hit by a 2.5 foot wave, propagating against the wind. It looked like it stretched to both sides of the lake. (we were near the middle). Got skunked.

laffs..at least were in the same neighborhood…
we didn’t have much luck there…smaller fish.. was cold
the yelowstone had some good size ones..
the south snake had nice rainbows…were yummy in garlic n butter…
but the nicest fish I’ve seen were on henry’s fork..
there isn’t a bad river anywhere out that way..

I saw the Feds once ‘thin’ the buffalo in yelowstone..
when I stopped the car and grabbed the camera
two guys in a government truck pulled up to hassle me..
the whole yarn….license…what are you doing..
you cant take photos here…move along move along…
not only is it an act of congress…they send goons..

laffs..at least were in the same neighborhood…
we didn’t have much luck there…smaller fish.. was cold
the yelowstone had some good size ones..
the south snake had nice rainbows…were yummy in garlic n butter…
but the nicest fish I’ve seen were on henry’s fork..
there isn’t a bad river anywhere out that way..

going2mars on February 6, 2014 at 10:00 PM

Not sure how far I can go on a thread hijack, especially as a February 06, 2014 NEWB, but…

You haven’t fished until you’ve fished the Gunnison Gorge Stonefly hatch. Epic lunker Browns, down in the depths all year, come up to surface feed for only 2 weeks of the year. Hit it right and 24″ browns, consistently, are doable. It’s a multiple day float, only accessible by raft in the best places, and gives you a chance to forget all that Dog Eater has been doing for the last 5 years to the last great hope. I get chills just thinking about it.

welcome to HA…
were not hijacking this thread…were driving it..
its government/boating/fishing Americas rivers…
you sound more like a fisherman…
I am more of a rafter….
so you fish us thru this
and i’ll row us around the eddies..
I have not rafted the gunny…hangs head..
mostly a upper rocky rafter..
been to the flathead??……small glacial trout..

the north fork of the flathead is shallow…cold..
flows out of Canada and the glaicers..not much for the fish to eat here..
the middle fork is a little deeper no as wide as the north.
starts in the bob marshal wilderness area..schafer meadows..
you can fly in or pack mule in and raft out.
and the lower fork has great wilderness parts..
a lot less water in the upper parts..
really not much for the lil guys to eat…so they don’t get too big

Let’s keep everyone OUT of our National Parks. That way they’ll remain pristine!

GarandFan on February 6, 2014 at 10:24 PM

You’re kidding right? Strap some bear spray on your belt, some lightweight supplies in your pack, and you can get lost for a week in Yellowstone. Pack out all your garbage and no living sole would ever know you were there. Pristine can be preserved and the land can be used with the right approach. Does not require keeping “everyone out”.

“In fact, however, the federal government is rarely if ever an efficient, energetic, creative, agile, or cost-effective problem solver…..”

I can vouch for that. In 1991 I went on a tour of the Bunker Hill Superfund site. at the time they were doing decontamination of the smelter at Kellog, Id. As our tour bus was turning around to head to another part of the site I noticed a pile of brownish orange substance. when I asked the guide what it was he informed us that it was a pile of arsenic. This particular pile had been sitting there for ten YEARS without being at least covered over with a tarp or plastic. Ten years of being rained and snowed upon all the while the glorious EPA was “studying” the site. Problem solver indeed, my ass